South Africa's business community is having sleepless nights about the continued calls for nationalisation of local companies.

Despite repeated assurances by President Jacob Zuma that nationalisation is not government policy, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema uses every platform to push nationalisation and insist that the ANC's national executive committee is discussing it.

Dr John Purchase, CEO of the Agricultural Business Chamber(ABC), shares his insights about changing the Co-Operatives legislation and the importance of agricultural business in the agricultural value chain.

The parliamentary portfolio committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries has been holding public hearings on transformation in the agricultural sector.

A variety of organisations have made representations to the committee, including the AgriBEE charter council. The department of agriculture, forestry and fisheries has also reported on the current status of transformation in the sector.

According to director general of the department, Langa Zita, the council is in the process of aligning the AgriBEE transformation charter with the requirements of a section 9 code of good practice as set out in Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Act 53 of 2003. When the charter was gazetted in March 2008, it was aligned to section 12 of the act and is therefore not binding to enterprises. This has made reporting on the sector’s transformation difficult.